It is not intended to be a text book reference
but just a few bits and pieces to let you know what mushrooms are all about.

At the top of each page there are links to all
the major pages so you can go back and forth as you please. On all the
mushroom pages there are links to the main mushroom groups as you see above
this paragraph and below the title.

Please please please, if you have any trouble
navigating through the pages or have any suggestions or questions,
contact me and I will be happy to
respond.

I would recommend to anyone new to mushrooms
to view the General information page before
browsing the mushroom photos, the information on that page will greatly
facilitate your understanding of the descriptions.

What are Mushrooms?

Mushrooms are unique. They are neither animal
or plant.

Some people consider them plants for various
reasons, but they differ from plants in that they lack the green chlorophyll
that plants use to manufacture their own food and energy. For this reason
they are placed in a Kingdom of their own," The Kingdom of Fungi".

Mushrooms are also unique within the Fungal
Kingdom itself, because they produce the complex fruiting body which we all
know as 'The Mushroom', all of the mushrooms are placed in a division called
'Eumycota' meaning 'The True Fungi'.

The True Fungi are what we all know as
mushrooms. They are divided into other groups depending on the structure of
their fruiting bodies and various other macro and microscopic
characteristics.

A brief description of each is provided on
their individual pages, and for an overview of how the division Eumycota is
broken down see the Classification page.

So, what are mushrooms? A mushroom is but the
fruit of the fungal organism that produces them, just like an apple tree
produces apples to bear seeds to ensure the continuation of it's species, so
the fungal organism produces mushrooms that carry spores to ensure the
continuation of it's own species.

Therefore, the mushroom is the reproductive
organ for the fungus.

This means that by picking a mushroom we do
not harm the fungus itself, because the main body of the organism lies
underground in the form of a network of minute threads called 'Hyphae'.

When two compatible hyphae meet they join
together to form another network called the 'Mycelium' which grows quietly
and unseen under ground for most of the year until the conditions are right
for fruiting and that's when we get to see mushrooms.

Unfortunately, mushrooms are very delicate
things, they do not last, some have a life span of less than a day others
may survive one week, and a group of tougher mushrooms may last months but
they have a tough woody texture.

Most fleshy mushrooms do not last, and this
makes researching them very difficult.

Since we do not know where they are till they
fruit, we only get a few days to study them each time, and this is seasonal.

You may ask why we don't mark the spot they
fruited so they can be studied more next time? Good idea, but mushrooms are
funny things, you may see a mushroom on a patch of your front lawn this
year, but it may not fruit again for several years, or it may fruit again
next week, or you may find a completely different kind of mushroom in the
same area.

Each Mushroom carries within it millions or
even billions of spores, to the extent, that in the case of some kinds of
mushrooms grown commercially, workers have to wear dust masks to protect
themselves from the spore dust and breath easily.

Only a few of these spores manage to survive
and grow into a mycelial network producing new mushrooms . To make life even
more difficult, two compatible spores have to meet to be able to produce
mushrooms.

Imagine if every tree or branch that fell down
just stayed there for ever, or imagine how deep the layer of autumn leaves
would be after a few years if they did not rot.

This is the main role of fungi and mushrooms,
they are the main recyclers in nature, they break down wood and humus back
into their original components and therefore not only making it easier for
our little adventures in the wild but they also provide food for living
plants by returning dead trees and forest littler to simple organic
materials in a form suitable for plant use.

It amazes me how these delicate little things
that can be kicked into nothing have the ability to completely break down
even the biggest tree.

They take turns on the same tree, not out of
the kindness of their heart of course but because mushrooms differ in their
ability to break down certain materials.

So, when a tree falls down, it may be attacked
first by, say, an Oyster Mushroom, which will slowly decompose the tree
until it reaches a stage of decomposition that is not longer suitable for it
to sustain it's existence.

This is when another, or other mushrooms will
take over, say, Gallerina sp. which will break the tree down further until
it is taken over by the Red Pouch mushroom for instance.

This succession will continue until there is
no more tree left.

The above described mushrooms are called
'Saprophytic Fungi' due to their feeding habits.

Not all mushrooms grow on wood though. Another
group of mushrooms grow from the ground feeding on humus and any organic
materials contained in the soil, but at the same time they form a special
beneficial relationship with live trees, this relationship is called a
'Symbiotic Relationship' where the tree provides the mushroom with some of
the glucose they produce and in return the mushroom gives the tree essential
minerals for it's growth, this exchange of nutrients takes place through the
roots of the tree.

This is why some mushrooms are always
associated with certain trees. A group of symbiotic mushrooms grow
underground and can only be found by digging for them, this often requires
specially trained dogs and even pigs are used to find them. Some of this
group are the most prized and expensive mushrooms like the NZ Perigold Black
Truffle which fetches up to NZ$3000/kg and is sought after by renowned chefs
worldwide.

Not all mushrooms are do gooders though.

Some of them are 'Parasitic', they attack live
trees causing deadly diseases.

An example of this is the Honey mushroom,(
this is not the same as the Honey Comb mushroom which is a commercial edible
sp.) which does it's fair share of damage to NZ trees.

For the above reasons, I believe that
mushrooms play a vital role in nature, even if it is in the background where
we don't see it.

Why don't we see it? Because we just don't

I did not see it till I started looking and
that's when I found that there are mushrooms everywhere, in places I have
been a hundred times and believe me, some of them are worth seeing.

Some mushrooms look just like you would expect
a mushroom to look, while others are no less than amazing.

Some look just like miniature birds' nests,
others look like a horse's tail, some look just like coral reefs people dive
in the deep ocean to see.

Aren't they poisonous?

Yes, some mushrooms are poisonous.

But what does poisonous mean? If it means
deadly, then let me reassure you, there are only a handful of mushrooms that
can kill a human being.

Most of the other poisonous mushrooms, so
called 'Toad Stools', are harmful, but their effect is limited to sickness
and stomach upsets, but wait, don't go rushing out eating them.

People do react differently to different
mushrooms, like, I could eat a mushroom and not be affected while you might
eat the same one and feel a little sick or vice versa.

Either way,
no one should attempt to eat a
wild mushroom without being 100% sure of it's identity. If in doubt,
throw it out!!

I
would not recommend anyone to eat any mushroom unless I have tasted it
myself several times with no ill effects and I would also advise you all not
to attempt eating any without having someone with experience in this field
with you, at least to start with.

The reassuring part is, the deadly mushrooms
are very few and are thus very well described and as long as you do your
homework, you won't die.

Even these deadly ones are nothing to be
feared, they can all be handled safely, as long as we all practice good
common sense, I mean, don't go chewing on them and come back ringing my
neck!!!

Most of us know very little about mushrooms.
We know the mushrooms we see, buy and eat from the supermarket, and know
about the 'Field or Horse Mushrooms' that fruit in paddocks or on the road
side.

Some of us
are adventurous and have tasted the field ones, some have not, but most tend
to think that they all taste the same, a mushroom flavor is a mushroom
flavor.

You can
not be further from the truth. Most mushrooms are unique, they taste
so different from the ones we know you will be astonished, not just the
flavor, texture is also very different.

The best example I can think of is the
Shiitake Mushroom, sold in some supermarkets, try them, is all I can say!!
They will speak for themselves.

You may say that if they are as wonderful as I
say they are, why are they not all commercialized and sold in the
supermarkets? Well, let me tell you, as I mentioned before, most mushrooms
have a very short life span making research near impossible for some of
them, and research is necessary to find out how to grow them to start with.

At the same time, a mushroom that survives
less than a day or even a whole day would make a rotten mess on the
supermarket shelf at the end of the day if it makes it to the shelf to start
with.

Others are
currently on their way to commercial production, like the Perigold Black
Truffle in Gisborne and the South Island, and I believe there is a lot of
interest in Oyster, Shiitake and Enokitake Mushrooms in NZ at the moment.